


Beloved

by canis_m



Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
Genre: Devotion, Future Fic, M/M, Of the very distant kind, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22026430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canis_m/pseuds/canis_m
Summary: Two deaths, a funeral, and a demon playing Hachiko.
Relationships: Saku Gyousou/Taiki | Takasato Kaname
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Because Heaven has yet to come up with a retirement plan.

On the day of the king and Saiho's passing, snow fell on Hakkei Palace from an empty sky. It's said snow has never fallen above the Sea of Clouds, before or since, even in that far northern kingdom, but on that day it fell, shrouding the palace's blue eaves in white. It fell in Kouki, too, to veil the capital city: on temple roofs, on the streets where the residents wept openly—as parents weep when they fear a thousand years of peace is ending, and their children are still babes in arms—while the temple bells solemnly tolled. 

The mourners knew little of the months of preparations, the reams of orders given, the vows sworn in the hearts of anguished ministers who moved about their duties like clockwork ghosts. Among the tombs on the far side of the palace, the head priestess initiated funerary rites. First the bodies must be cleansed with prescribed ablutions, then arrayed in state in the new tomb's antechamber. Then the ritual of supplication must be performed, so that the Saiho's shirei might be prevailed upon to consume nothing but their due, and leave His Majesty undisturbed in rest. 

The tomb was less lavish than its ancient predecessor's, built cleanly of pale stone. The rites proceeded without incident. During the night a dreadful shriek was heard from the shuttered chamber, like the shrilling of a monstrous bird—then no other sound. The priestess shivered at her vigil, and wrapped her robes around her against the night.

The following day dawned cold and clear. When she went to attend the departed king, the priestess stopped short in the antechamber. She stared.

The Saiho's body lay beside the king's, untouched on the bier.

Untouched, or nearly so. As she crept closer, taut with fear, she saw that its position had been shifted, if only just, from its arrangement the day before. The dark head crowned with its single horn now lay nestled near the white. The dark mane, still lustrous as black pearl, spilled onto the king's unmoving hand.

She fled the tomb. When she had gathered her nerves again, she summoned and consulted the diviners. 

What could it mean? she asked. Some sort of omen? Were the records of past funerals unclear? No, they were clear: in the usual order of things, the Saiho's body ought to have vanished by morning. Had they not all heard the awful noise in the night? Perhaps a few bones might remain, perhaps the horn—

No, no, said one diviner peevishly. The horn was the conduit of heavenly power. To newly unbound demons it would be the choicest part. By what sorcery had not only the choicest part been left, but the blessed whole? 

The priestess pursed her lips. She considered what she knew of the Saiho. Might he have ordered his shirei to wait, she wondered aloud, before the end? To permit him one last night at his master's side?

The diviners blinked, then nodded sagely. All too plausible, they said. Let us wait another night and see.

But the next day, when the priestess returned, the scene in the antechamber was unchanged. 

The priestess frowned beside the bier, studying its occupants now with more bafflement than fright. They would have to be interred together. A separate tomb for the Saiho was unheard of—his personal effects, if nothing else, were to be buried with the king—and in any case, none had been prepared. It could hardly be considered an impiety. Surely neither of them would be displeased.

She gazed for a long while at the dark head beside the white. For the first time since the sacred pheasant had uttered its last, tremulous cry, her eyes filled with tears. She made obeisance and moved toward the doorway, to leave the pair on the bier to their rest. 

At the threshold she halted, startled by motion in the blurry corner of one eye. 

An enormous dog—a wolf?—crouched in the lee of the bier. Its shape flickered like a guttering lamp. Its eyes glowed in the dimness, fixing the priestess with their lambent stare. Its head turned, and for a second its muzzle seemed to nudge the Saiho's foreleg, as a hound might nudge its sleeping master's hand.

Then it dissolved in shadow.

The priestess held herself profoundly still. She bowed low. She drew breath and retreated slowly, as one retreats from a watchful predator, to exit the tomb. She passed through the doorway, under the keystone carved with the Saiho's given name, and above it the name by which its giver would be known in death: Bo-Ou, the Beloved King. 

It's said at Hakkei Palace that the tomb is guarded still, and no living soul intrudes on the peace within.


End file.
